Zopa revamps secondary market

Zopa is overhauling its secondary market so that investors can sell loans progressively, rather than waiting until they reach the front of the queue.

The ‘big three’ peer-to-peer lender said that loan sales would take approximately the same amount of time, though funds would be made available gradually. And when this is live, the timeout feature will likely no longer be in use.

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This is in an attempt to prevent people waiting extended periods of time in the queue, as sales are taking longer than usual because of a rise in withdrawal requests.

In an email to an investor, published on the P2P Independent Forum, Zopa said that the platform is needing to adapt and evolve its systems accordingly due to unforeseen circumstances.

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“At Zopa, we continually look at different ways to improve our services to customers and this is just as important during this time of uncertainty,” a spokesperson from Zopa said.

“Most investors continue to invest in the platform and so there continues to be stable demand to buy loans on the secondary market.

“However, like other financial markets and investments, we did see an increase in the number of requests to withdraw money from the Zopa platform.

“Due to the situation, loan sales are taking longer than average at the moment and we understand that this can be frustrating, we are therefore working on technical enhancements to improve how the queue operates.”

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Fellow ‘big three’ lender Funding Circle revamped its secondary market last December, with a similar aim of ensuring that investors got money back more quickly.

Rather than operating on a first-come, first-served basis, the new tool cycles through all investors wishing to sell loan parts as many times as possible within a 120-day period.